Best Interloper base

[Salty Crackers]

I recently started an Interloper game that I hope will be a long-term one and have been thinking about where to settle down. I've narrowed it own to a few places:

 

Farmhouse

-Central location on a centrally-located map

-The wood stove is great for cooking

-The porch is a fantastic utility

-Fire barrel for cabin fever- but watch out for the bear!

-Blizzards constantly- my god

-Not too close to fishing

-Not a lot of firewood

 

Fishing Camp

-Outdoor workbench- goodbye cabin fever!

-Very close to fishing

-Beachcombing accessibility

-Good weather

-No indoor fireplace

-Not much storage space

 

The Riken

-Constant access to forge

-Wheelhouse great for outdoor cooking

-Good weather

-Fuel everywhere

-Beachcombing accessibility

-Tilt is kind of annoying

-Very dark

-No fishing

 

Camp Office

-Centrally located- easy to get to every other region

-Fishing nearby

-Counters are great for organizing

-Fair weather

-Good fuel supply

-Great hunting nearby

-A few wolves nearby

 

Mountaineer's Hut

-Everything very close- fuel, fishing, rabbits, deer

-Hatch counts as outdoor storage for meat

-Beautiful views

-Very cold

-Painful trek to the forge

-High wolf activity on the lake

 

Where do you think I should settle? Do you have any other locations in mind?

[s7mar7in]

31 minutes ago, Salty Crackers said:

Where do you think I should settle?

Early game keep moving and looting with destination of DP, (forge arrowheads and knife(s)), loot CH and settle at Fishing Camp to get crafting done, (to me it is the safest feeling base), then you may move up the stream to move into and loot ML and Carter Hydro. The trick is to keep moving without rushing and ruining the fun of the game.

[Salty Crackers]

38 minutes ago, s7mar7in said:

Early game keep moving and looting with destination of DP, (forge arrowheads and knife(s)), loot CH and settle at Fishing Camp to get crafting done, (to me it is the safest feeling base), then you may move up the stream to move into and loot ML and Carter Hydro. The trick is to keep moving without rushing and ruining the fun of the game.

I started out in FM and made the (slightly stupid) choice to go loot BR first. I looted the Maintenance Shed and the Hunting Lodge, and made my way back to FM to loot the Spence Homestead, the High Blind and the Poacher's Camp. I am currently in the Camp Office. My current strategy is pretty much what you have stated. For the first couple of weeks, I will move around a lot, but I want to know what the best place to settle after I loot everything important is.

[s7mar7in]

13 minutes ago, Salty Crackers said:

I started out in FM and made the (slightly stupid) choice to go loot BR first. I looted the Maintenance Shed and the Hunting Lodge,

I think you are on-track for a great run. Sounds like you favor the PV Farmhouse, and though I would not choose it, the stove is amazing and it is a very safe trek to the Winding River and the Carter Hydro...so it could be a good choice for you.

I became lost on the trails in BR near the Maintenance Shed and discovered it is a target rich area, (many frozen corps sites with top-tier loot).
Good Luck!

[Salty Crackers]

37 minutes ago, s7mar7in said:

I think you are on-track for a great run. Sounds like you favor the PV Farmhouse, and though I would not choose it, the stove is amazing and it is a very safe trek to the Winding River and the Carter Hydro...so it could be a good choice for you.

The list was in no particular order. In most of my Stalker games, I settle at the Fishing Camp. My long-term strategy (i.e not Interloper) revolves around fishing and beachcombing, so I settle on CH. I just find the Fishing Camp the best base on CH. However, playing on Interloper is making me consider the Riken more seriously. Having a lot of fuel is very powerful, and the mines of DP provide tons of coal so I can afford to be outside to prevent cabin fever. My only fear is that not being able to fish will make it a lot harder to get food. On my current run, I'm not starving myself on the principle of it, so getting calories is much more important. I'm pretty terrible with both the bow and stones, so I fear that I would run out of food. I could find a place to trap rabbits, but the Riken is surrounded by ice, so there aren't really any nearby rabbit runs. 

Essentially, I'm in  a tossup between the Riken and the Fishing Camp, but would still like to know if there are any other bases I could live in.

[Cr41g]

Across from the Camp Office at Lake Overlook Cave

-Centrally located- easy to get to every other region

- No cabin fever, sitting corpse for those long talks by the fire

-Fishing nearby

-Huge floor for organizing

-Fair weather

-Excellent fuel supply

-Great hunting nearby

- Rabbits at your front door

- close to Camp Office workbench

- wolves on the lake

[stratvox]

Further to @Cr41g's post... the Forest Cave on PV is also a good cave to hang out in.

• Lots of nearby fuel in all directions
• Closest place to the one fishing hut on the map... it's just up the hill.
• It's big, and the snow covered area right outside the actual cave is very well sheltered from the wind and an excellent place to store meat.
• Deer, wolves, moose, and bear are nearby.
• Just over by the picnic area is an excellent spot for rabbits.
• The workbench at the radio tower is within easy reach.
• Pretty close to the exits to CH and ML.

Cave living is actually pretty awesome. You get full on longevity bonus for your fires if you build them just inside the entrance; build a fire for eight hours, watch it last for twelve or more. I generally go with a permafire when I'm in a cave (i.e. burning all the time); I just feed it up to eight to twelve hours before I set out for the day and make sure I grab wood along the way, and then feed it for the night. The longest burning fire I've ever had according to my journal stats was 259 hours, so nearly 11 days. If you're in a good location and have your fire skill up reasonably high then permafires are totally viable, and the forest cave on PV is one of those locations.

Once you get yourself set up with decent clothing that is... my overall preference is to hit a forge to get arrowheads, then hit the fishing village at CH to get myself set up (don't need good clothing to survive in the cabin right by the crafting table, and the outdoor crafting table is a real godsend when it comes to avoiding cabin fever), and then once I get myself up to decent gear (wolfskin coat, bearskin coat, 2x deer pants, deer boots, rabbit mitts, and a bearskin bedroll) I start heading into the wilder regions to live in caves. One thing about the places where human habitation used to be extensive as that they tend to have a lot of wolves (coastal townsite/quonset, railway on ML, maintenance shed on BR, etc etc) while the areas around caves are generally (but not always!) not nearly as infested with wolves.

[palbi]

CH-Jackrabbit Island.
+ Pretty safe from wolves and bears,
+ Fishing nearby and workbench not too far,
+ Lots of rabbits
+ Lot of space for stuff,
+ DP-forge not too far,
+ lots of fuel (and the coal mine also not too far!)
- No fireplace/stove

I played Interloper just before the Great Savegame Wipe (some 170 days long story). I found, that I didn't hunt so much, being the wheather so cruel, that the one I tried had cost me around 65% condition loss. Interloper = fishing mainly.

But one thing I mastered: as the first couple of weeks the wheater is not so hard, I rush through all the regions to find the teaching books (they don't need to be searched so hard as they are just laying here and there, outside of drawers, boxes or the kind). This way I was e.g. level 4 gun shooter, before firing just a single shot.

[Pillock]

23 hours ago, palbi said:

I played Interloper just before the Great Savegame Wipe (some 170 days long story). I found, that I didn't hunt so much, being the wheather so cruel, that the one I tried had cost me around 65% condition loss. Interloper = fishing mainly.

But one thing I mastered: as the first couple of weeks the wheater is not so hard, I rush through all the regions to find the teaching books (they don't need to be searched so hard as they are just laying here and there, outside of drawers, boxes or the kind). This way I was e.g. level 4 gun shooter, before firing just a single shot.

Not a great deal of point in being level 4 gun shooter on Interloper, though.

[Jolan]

It depends on which houses are intact on CH - I have two that are my prefered houses one near the gas station one in the coastal village.  They both have fireplaces and porches, near fishing, near deer, near wolves which can be either a plus or a minus depending.

[Jolan]

If neither of those are good then JackRabbit for the reasons mentioned by Palbi

[palbi]

21 hours ago, Pillock said:

Not a great deal of point in being level 4 gun shooter on Interloper, though.

Was just an example, anyway, it's a custom game. I've been playing this recently: supplies and equipment around the game mode of Voyageur (perhaps a bit harder) and wheather is Interloper, but the spoilage of food is Pilgrim.

[palbi]

14 hours ago, Jolan said:

It depends on which houses are intact on CH - I have two that are my prefered houses one near the gas station one in the coastal village.  They both have fireplaces and porches, near fishing, near deer, near wolves which can be either a plus or a minus depending.

As far as I remember, in Stalker and Interloper both of them are ruined. (In harder game modes the houses with fireplace/stove tend to be ruined, except the "V.I.P." ones like PV-Farmstead, ML-Camp Office and Trapper's Cabin, TW-Mountaineer's Hut).

[Pillock]

@Salty Crackers

My favourite place to stay in terms of ease of living is Pensive Pond on PV, I think. You've got the fishing, obviously, and you've got plenty of rabbits and firewood in the wooded area between the pond and the top of the waterfall. So food and a supply of guts for your fishing lines is fairly easy to maintain. You've got a sheltered fireplace in the fishing hut and you can sleep in there too, if you have a bedroll. There's also a deer that comes to the pond every so often, and a moose (less often). The big bonus for me is that there are never any wolves or bears there, unless you draw them in with scent, so it's safe; but they aren't far away if you need to hunt them for hides, and there's plenty of large rocks to use for safely hunting the dangerous animals. There's also a few nooks around those rocks where you you can put a snowshelter, if the bedroll is becoming difficult to maintain. When you need to use a workbench, it's less than a game-hour to walk to Signal Hill along the edge of the hillside (via the top of the rope-climb above the bear cave), and you shouldn't normally come across any wolves or bears en route. The only reason you ever have to leave the area is to collect scrap metal for fishing hooks (and perhaps cloth for clothing repairs), but apart from that you can just live up there pretty comfortably.

[Pillock]

1 hour ago, palbi said:

Was just an example, anyway, it's a custom game. I've been playing this recently: supplies and equipment around the game mode of Voyageur (perhaps a bit harder) and wheather is Interloper, but the spoilage of food is Pilgrim.

I go the other way with my custom games: extremely scarce supplies and equipment, but kinder weather!

[Jolan]

6 hours ago, palbi said:

As far as I remember, in Stalker and Interloper both of them are ruined. (In harder game modes the houses with fireplace/stove tend to be ruined, except the "V.I.P." ones like PV-Farmstead, ML-Camp Office and Trapper's Cabin, TW-Mountaineer's Hut).

I could swear I found them both unruined in different games, but it was in late 2016 /early 2017 when I was receiving some heavy medical treatments.  So its quite possible I've merged the memories of some stalker games with my interloper games.  

[Spakerman]

My more successful runs have used ML  camp office/overlook cave as my combined home.  I use CO as the base and when the weather is crap I go up to the cave to hang out and stave off cabin fever.  I stock both up pretty well so I could spend many days at either place without worrying about supplies.

 

[palbi]

18 hours ago, Jolan said:

I could swear I found them both unruined in different games, but it was in late 2016 /early 2017 when I was receiving some heavy medical treatments.  So its quite possible I've merged the memories of some stalker games with my interloper games.  

Could be, the game I play now is 2 or 3 Updates old, and since then I haven't started a new one.

[Simone Else]

i always end up at mountaneers hut, but i also like jackrabbit island, its pretty chill and resources are decent 

[huntergathers]

I'm a big proponent of the Dam as a main loot cache and base. It's about as centrally located as you can get, a crossing point between three maps in very close proximity, with the ravine right there in case of cabin fever with a very easy to reach cave in a safe place with one of the easiest places to bag deer without them being able to run far.

It's a huge boon to have a well stocked base in the dam as you'll definitely be passing through as you move around the world, and a great place to craft because of how easy cabin fever is to deal with there. There's a TON of reclaimed wood to be had inside the dam as well that you can even break down by hand to get your firewood stockpile for the nearby cave, plus a fire barrel inside the dam itself, as well as being one of the best places in the game to harvest metal for crafting.

You also cant beat the mobility you can get from moving up in the hills near the railroad tracks. If you don't smell, you can move through the upper hills to the left of the tracks from the dam and be entirely safe from wolves all the way to the entrance to forlorn muskeg.

[Atheenon]

I agree the dam is a great location for your main stash of items. My pay style though i don't "base" up anywhere for long. I find making cashes of food and water, supplies, and items in each zone allows for much exploration and after a few hundred days in the game it's fun to move around without having to carry all that stuff with you. Camp office, farmhouse( in both Milton and pv), fishing huts and garage in CH, riken in DP, mountaineers hut in TWM are all great set spots for gear and stuff. Good luck and keep surviving!

[jerry486]

In my loper run I use many bases, but tend to think of Quonset as my main place to dump valuable stuff into. As I learn how to play this difficulty (day 228+) I now know where to stop during my travels, so that I can fill my warmth bar / continue my travels between strategic zones. I tend to stay at these places for a couple of days, stocking them up with water and meat. I will also leave any hides and gut to cure. Over time this allows me to get out of emergency situations easier. Let's say I am travelling from A to B. A streak of bad luck decides to ground me in a cave for 2-3 days. No problem, the cave is stocked with meat, water and wood. These stocked places are. ML: camp office, dam, trappers, clearcut barracks PV: pond fishing hut, farmstead, farm, bunker near TWM exit, signal hill, caves, villages (houses). CH: garage, terrace of burnt down house near garage (if you managed to put a fire there prior to the "broken-fires" update you can shield it that way there), jackrabbit, fishing village, regular visits to coal mine. DP: Riken and church (lighthouse is in a bad location wood and risk-wise). MT: granny's house, farm and broken hermit's hut at basin. BR: warehouse, lodge, cave near lodge (upper deck), cave down the rope near the lodge (first I snipe the bear, then cave is vacant for a long while). FM: cave near Spence (Spence itself is difficult to maintain fuel-wise). Birch forest paradise (no predators) cave. There's one more cave with wolves spawn nearby but hard to explain where exactly, anyway, I've stocked that one up as well. TWM: mountaineer's, then skyrim down to engine - one cave there as well. it's all about caves there really. Even at the summit, I only spend a few hours just enjoying the view from up there, cuz there's a cave up that mountain too, so I don't have to worry about temps. Ravine: caves along the ML-CH route, in case weather goes bad. Ravine is an awesome region, stress-free. I wish HL have worked on that region some more, expanded places the player can reach, this map has great potential and should be way more than just a transition zone.  Crumbling highway - only use the basement to run away from wolves. Prefer the cave. HRV: have not attempted this on my loper run yet and not too sure i will